Mulberry-paper-based composites for flexible electronics and energy storage devices.

Mulberry paper comprising holocellulose shows excellent mechanical and chemical stability suitable for paper-based electronics. However, most studies pertaining to paper-based electronics have used conventional paper. Therefore, in this study, we demonstrated Ag nanoparticle (AgNP)/Ag nanowire (AgNW) flexible composites on mulberry-paper substrates. The AgNP/AgNW composites were fabricated by the dry transfer method, where the AgNP/AgNW layers were transferred from a polymer substrate with a hydrophobic surface to the toner-printed mulberry paper via hot pressing. Microstructural analysis showed that the mulberry papers contained thicker fibres than those in conventional papers, which limited the uniform transfer of the AgNP/AgNW layers on the mulberry papers. Therefore, we optimised the hot pressing conditions to 30 MPa and 80 °C, which allowed for the successful formation of the AgNP/AgNW composites on mulberry papers. Cyclic bending test results over 10,000 cycles revealed that the mulberry-paper-based composites showed better mechanical reliability with 30–40% smaller increases in resistance compared to those in conventional A4-paper-based composites. Lastly, a flexible supercapacitor fabricated using the mulberry-paper-based composite as the current collector showed excellent reliability without significant capacitance degradation over 100 bending cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]